Auto Insurance Inflation Premium (Auto CPI minus Overall CPI)

The Auto Insurance Inflation Premium sets two Bureau of Labor Statistics price measures side by side: the 12-month change in the consumer price index for motor vehicle insurance, and the 12-month change for all items. In August 2026, the insurance rate was 8.5 percentage points below the all-items rate. That is the lowest reading since October 2020. The gap is down from a reading of 1.7 percentage points in August 2025. A month earlier, in July 2026, it read -7.8 percentage points.

A reading below zero means motor vehicle insurance prices went up more slowly than consumer prices overall, or came down. The gap is measured in percentage points: the difference between two percent changes. It has been on both sides of zero since 2001, and BLS gives no cause for its sign or size.

In this measure's name, premium means the gap between the two rates. The insurance index itself prices the same private car insurance policies each month, holding the driver, the car and the coverage constant, so a household's own premium can move differently. Motor vehicle insurance carried about 2.8 percent of the consumer price index's weight in December 2025. Motor Vehicle Insurance CPI shows the insurance rate on its own, and CPI Inflation Rate (All Items) the overall rate it is set against.

American Default Research computes the gap from the seasonally adjusted indexes, meaning BLS has removed the usual calendar swings; BLS headlines 12-month changes from the unadjusted ones and does not publish this gap. There is no reading for October or November 2025, the months of the federal government shutdown, and there will be none for October or November 2026. The CPI covers urban consumers, over 90 percent of the U.S. population.